Could this be the ultimate in portable wire welding power?

Figure 1
All components that make up the Tactical Welder can be stored in the included backpack. The bag provides a holster for the spool gun and tools. Six-foot cables with high-current plug connectors for positive or negative ground welding are included as part of the portable welding machine’s package.

The case for portable welding units is understood by anyone who has had to weld in a remote location. There’s the farmer who drives several miles with a huge welding machine/generator in back of the pickup just to make a field repair that might last a couple of minutes. There’s the maintenance technician on a ship who needs to make a weld in an area that won’t accommodate a traditional welding power source, so he has to run cables, creating a less-than-ideal safety environment. In short, remote welding can be a pain.

UltraTech International Inc., Jacksonville, Fla., is looking to change that with its Tactical Welder. The company calls it the most powerful battery-powered welding machine available.

The technology behind the portable welding product is an electronic battery management system that uses high-capacity lithium-ion batteries to provide consistent power and safely controls charging and discharging functions. UltraTech International, a 25-year-old company that made its name in spill containment equipment for industrial companies and later got into other areas, such as stormwater management products, is leveraging the battery technology developed by a business associate in an attempt to reinvent an industry segment (see Figure 1).

“It’s definitely not meant to replace a full-blown stationary welder that has all the bells and whistles,” said Matt Clancy, UltraTech’s engineering and manufacturing director. “This comes with a battery-powered system, and it has a wire-fed spool gun that plugs right into it. You have the reverse polarity for MIG or flux-cored welding. You get nice, clean welds either way.”

This is possible, of course, because it can run up to 300 amps. (Most only get up to 150 amps.) Other portable units are on the market, according to Clancy, but they can’t generate the power necessary to do thick-wire gas metal arc welding or flux-cored welding. The Tactical Welder can process 0.023- to 0.040-in. welding wire.

And it all fits into a backpack. The entire package weighs 35 pounds.

“We’ve made AWS D1.1 structural steel welds using 0.035-in. flux-cored wire on 3⁄8-in. steel plate and root and face bend testing shows no defects,” Clancy said (see Figure 2).

Of course, the welder using the portable equipment has a lot to do with delivering a successful weld, Clancy said, but the Tactical Welder certainly isn’t viewed as an impediment to that.

“It’s an unbelievable experience for most welders because they just can’t wrap their head around 300 amps coming out of a battery in a backpack,” he said.

The electronic battery management system and the 528-watt-hour lithium-ion battery help this portable welding product work, according to Clancy. The Tactical Welder, which can be plugged into a 110-V outlet and takes about two hours to charge, can deliver about 20 minutes of actual welding time at a 33 percent duty cycle. That’s about 0.5 to 1 lb. of welding wire being processed per charge. (You can run at a higher duty cycle, Clancy said, but you’ll reduce the expected run time.) Also, if you are running a lower amperage, such as 60 amps, a welder might get 60 minutes of actual run time.

Figure 2
Face bends of a weld made by the Tactical Welder using 0.035-in. flux-cored wire on 3⁄8-in. steel plate showed no indications of welding defects.

Clancy said he expects the battery to provide full power for a “few thousand” charges before any wear and tear in the system becomes evident. Even then, the system would still work, but the charge may not last as long as it once did.

He added that the product development team took real pride in making the welding equipment as safe as possible. The gun has a cold tip feature, which ensures that a welding gun not in use doesn’t have a hot tip. If the battery cells show any damage or degradation, the welding machine shuts down right away.

Clancy said that the company is already looking at the next generation of the Tactical Welder. Feedback from welders that used the portable welding machine during beta testing mentioned that it would be good to have shielded metal arc welding and gas tungsten arc welding capability, and Clancy said that might be a possibility. There also is talk of adding the capability of charging the power source through a vehicle charger, eliminating the need for a wall outlet.

But those are plans for future product iterations. The current product can be tested at this year’s FABTECH® event in Atlanta, Nov. 6-8. UltraTech International can be found at booth C13545.

UltraTech International Inc., www.tacticalwelder.com